Ava AbbottTwilio is a cloud communications platform as a service (CPaaS) company with a fully editable application program interface (API). It is based in San Francisco, California, and was founded in 2008 by Jeff Lawson, Evan Cooke, and John Wolthuis.
The platform is designed to make it easier for businesses to add channels to their customer outreach and communicate with the target market via their desired platform. It processes messages, calls, and video for businesses like Uber, Airbnb, Lyft, and Yelp.
Twilio went public in 2016 and has expanded its portfolio over the years through acquisitions, including SendGrid in 2018, Electric Imp in July 2020, and Segment for $3.2 billion in October 2020.
As of September 30, 2020, Twilio had 3,664 employees and more than 208,000 active customer accounts, up 21% year-over-year.
Twilio witnessed tremendous growth in 2020 and posted first-quarter revenue of $365 million, up 57% from Q1 2019. Its adjusted earnings for the quarter was $6.1 million. Second-quarter revenue remained nearly flat and then jumped 52% year-over-year in Q3 2020 to reach $448.0 million.
Its dollar-based net expansion rate for the third quarter of 2020 was 137%, compared to 132% for the third quarter of 2019. Twilio’s market capitalization surged from about $13 billion to $55 billion in 2020 and increased the net worth of CEO Jeff Lawson to over $1.4 billion.
Twilio has to fend off its top competitors like Vonage, Infobip, Sinch, and Plivo to retain its leadership of the cloud communications market.
Here is an in-depth analysis of Twilio’s top competitors and alternatives:
1. Vonage (formerly Nexmo)
Year founded: 2001
Headquarter: Holmdel, New Jersey
Vonage is a leading CPaaS provider. It acquired Nexmo in 2016, which established the company as a market leader for API solutions with over 1600 carriers in about 200 countries. The integration of Nexmo and Vonage’s platforms expanded its offering to include voice alerts, standard and bulk SMS, live webchat, and voice APIs for IVR, P2P, A2P, A2A, and text-to-speech.
The platform has more than 114,000 developers and completes about 5 billion API calls per year. Its ever-growing client list includes big brands like Siemens, Domino’s Pizza, Glassdoor, Zipcar, DHL, and many more.
Twilio supports voice services in 50 countries, while Vonage supports more than 80 countries worldwide. Vonage is undeniably Twilio’s top competitor.
2. Infobip
Year founded: 2006
Headquarter: Vodnjan, Croatia
Infobip is a Croatian CPaaS company that offers an API and a web-based interface environment to help businesses create customer journeys easily. It provides the messaging platform for over 750 banks and works with some 650 mobile operators globally.
According to its founder and CEO Silvio Kutic, about 5 billion people have used the Infobip service. The company has 65+ offices in 52 countries and caters to big brands like Uber, Virgin, and Zendesk. In 2020, Infobip had a 35% revenue growth to reach $711 million, which is lower than Twilio’s over $1 billion in revenues. The company’s extensive global reach makes it a worthy top Twilio competitor.
3. Plivo
Year founded: 2011
Headquarter: San Francisco, California
Plivo is a CPaaS provider that allows developers and businesses to add SMS functionality to almost any app. It offers messaging flexibility with the ability to tailor texting features like SMS surveys and autoresponders to meet the needs of the business.
Both Twilio and Plivo provide support for long message concatenation with a maximum message size of 1,600 characters. Plivo serves 190 countries worldwide, offers incoming messaging in 14 countries, and provides customizable sender ID for more than 100 countries.
Its text-to-speech engine supports 16 languages, while Twilio supports 25. Plivo connects directly with providers in supported countries, which increases the quality of its services and makes it cheaper than Twilio.
4. Sinch
Year founded: 2008
Headquarter: Stockholm, Sweden
Sinch is a telecommunication and cloud communications platform as a service (PaaS) company. The Swedish powerhouse generated $582 million in revenue in 2019 and processed 110 billion messages.
In October 2020, Sinch released the Conversation API designed to make it easier for its clients to interact with their customers globally. The company has a local presence in 40 countries and is valued at about $4.6 billion, which is dwarfed by Twilio’s $55 billion market cap. Despite its size, Sinch is a top Twilio competitor in the communications API space.
5. Bandwidth and Voxbone
Year founded: 2005
Headquarter: Raleigh, N. C. (Bandwidth) and London, U.K. (Voxbone)
Bandwidth is a leading CPaaS and one of the largest IP voice networks in the US, while Voxbone is an international enterprise cloud communications leader. Voxbone’s platform is used by nearly 900 enterprises, including Skype, Uber, CHR Hansen, and Zoom.
It operates in over 60 countries and has coverage in major markets across 93% of the world by GDP. In October 2020, Bandwidth acquired Voxbone from Vitruvian Partners for $527 and allows for the integration of their solutions to create a unified software platform, network, and team.
The acquisition increases their competitive edge and can now challenge Twilio’s dominance of the sector.
6. RingCentral
Year founded: 1999
Headquarter: Belmont, California
RingCentral is one of the leading CPaaS providers built for the cloud and comes with an extensive library of APIs and strong functionality.
It built its communication services from the ground-up in the cloud and signed deals in 2020 to power major cloud-based solutions like Avaya’s UCaaS.
The main competitive advantage for RingCentral is integration with existing solutions like Connect Platform and RingCentral Office features into other apps. But the platform is not easy to use, which undercuts its advantage over Twilio.
7. Microsoft
Year founded: 1975
Headquarter: Redmond, Washington
Microsoft is renowned globally for delivering innovative solutions like Azure and Teams, which enables seamless interactions and collaborations. In September 2020, Microsoft launched Azure Communication Services, a new suite of tools that allows developers to add text messaging, voice, and video calling to their apps.
More than 75 million people daily use Microsoft Teams, tens of thousands of businesses rely on Azure, and over 50 million developers use GitHub. The biggest threat to Twilio is Microsoft’s ownership of GitHub because most of Twilio’s developers operate on GitHub. Microsoft can cross-sell its communications suite to GitHub developers and grab a huge chunk of Twilio’s market share.
8. Gupshup
Year founded: 2004
Headquarter: Silicon Valley, California
Gupshup is the leading smart messaging platform that offers cross-platform messaging APIs for SMS, Whatsapp, RCS, GIP, and over 30 other messaging channels. The platform is designed to streamline the development of advanced messaging services and chatbots.
It is used by more than 50,000 developers and processes over 5 billion messages per month. In Dec 2020, it launched Gupshup IP (GIP) messaging channel that enhances communication between businesses and their consumers and enables interactive experiences on any device globally.
The new service increases Gupshup’s competitive edge over Twilio.
9. QuickBlox
Year founded: 2011
Headquarter: London, England
QuickBlox is a communication platform that allows businesses to add customer messaging as a standalone platform or in-app. It offers voice chats APIs and SDKs for entrepreneurs to implement live chat software to meet their business needs and improve customer engagement.
The company’s main competitive advantage is its experience in building robust messaging solutions of any scale.
It currently powers more than 25,000 applications and offers back-end solutions that can be installed either on-premises or on a cloud service. Its Startup plan costs $49/month and $219/month for the Growth plan.
10. MessageBird
Year founded: 2011
Headquarter: Amsterdam, Netherlands
MessageBird is a Dutch cloud communication firm that caters to over 15,000 customers, from disruptors to innovators like SAP, Uber, and HelloFresh. It sells software that makes it easier for companies to communicate with their customers through SMS, voice, and messaging platforms, such as WhatsApp.
The company has offices in Amsterdam, San Francisco, Singapore, Dublin, London, Hamburg, Sydney, and Shanghai. In 2020, MessageBird raised $200 million in a mega-round of funding. The company is now valued at $3 billion and is recognized as Europe’s answer to Twilio.
11. 8×8 Inc.
Year founded: 1987
Headquarter: Campbell, California
8×8 Inc. is a leading integrated CPaaS provider and has been competing with Twilio in past few years. In 2019, 8×8 acquired Wavecell and gained entry into Hong Kong, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, and Singapore.
In September 2019, Twilio countered 8×8’s growing presence in Asia by expanding into the Japanese market.
8×8 increased its competitive edge in 2020 by launching an open communication platform with CPaaS programmable applications and APIs to streamline communications in work-from-home scenarios. The new service can poach some businesses from Twilio.
12. Zipwhip
Year founded: 2007
Headquarter: Seattle, Washington
Zipwhip is the inventor of Texting for Business, which catapulted the company to fame as the first provider to enable texting on existing business phone numbers. It is the world’s leading business-texting software and API provider, with more than 35,000 companies using its platform to increase customer engagement and drive growth.
In 2020, Zipwhip processed billions of texts per month and its revenue grew by 408% from 2016 to 2019. It was ranked the 8th fastest-growing company in Seattle on the Deloitte Technology Fast 500. Zipwhip rising on the list of Twilio’s top competitors.
13. Podium
Year founded: 2014
Headquarter: Lehi, Utah
Podium is a customer messaging platform that enables local companies to connect easily and quickly with their customers at critical touchpoints. It facilitates facilitating millions of customer interactions like customer-generated online reviews to help companies strengthen their business. Podium serves more than 60,000 local businesses in the US, Canada, and Australia.
It is backed by YC Continuity, Sapphire Ventures, Recruit Co. Ltd., IVP, Accel, Alkeon Capital, Summit Partners, and GV. Podium’s revenue surged 1148% revenue growth with four years and was ranked No. 100 on Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500™ in 2020. Although it is still a startup, Podium is already challenging experienced players like Twilio.
14. Vidyo
Year founded: 2005
Headquarter: Hackensack, New Jersey
Vidyo is a CPaaS that enriches digital communications and interactions by allowing businesses to embed real-time videos into their content quickly and easily. The main advantage of Vidyo’s platform is its integration with other application environments, networks, and devices.
In late 2020, the company upgraded its VidyoRoom Solutions with three video conferencing experiences. The new interfaces can display more than 200 video users’ images at one time and does not have a limit on the number of users displayed. Virtual interaction tools are demanded now more than ever, which makes Vidyo a top Twilio competitor.
15. Brightlink
Year founded: 2009
Headquarter: Atlanta, Georgia
Brightlink is an award-winning VoIP and UCaaS provider that also offers CPaaS services. Its CPaaS platform offers various APIs that allow for communications functionality to be integrated into all kinds of CRM and marketing tools.
Businesses can access voice and messaging capabilities and all APIs and tools they need to customize their offerings right from Brightlink’s intuitive web interface. Its user-friendly platform allows enterprises to integrate communications across their business, which is enough to entice some customers from Twilio.
References & more information
- Cloud Editor (2020, Oct 26)Press Release (2020, Oct 26). Twilio Announces Third Quarter 2020 Results. Yahoo Finance
- Ponciano, J. (2020, May 11). Twilio CEO Jumps Back Into Billionaire Ranks As Demand For Cloud Computing Services Surges. Forbes
- Cloud Editor (2020, Oct 26). Twilio vs. Nexmo (Vonage): Which is the best CPaaS Service? SIM Form
- Palmer, M. (2020, Aug 24). Infobip is Europe’s latest unicorn — the next step, an IPO. Sifted
- McCraw, C. (2020, March 16). Top 5 Twilio Alternatives in 2020. Get VoIP
- Miller, R. (2020, Oct 29). Sinch announces Conversation API to bring together multiple messaging tools. Tech Crunch
- Viscusi, S. (2020, Oct 14). Bandwidth to Acquire Voxbone. TMC Net
- Turner, B. (2020, Dec 14). Best CPaaS of 2021: Communications Platform as a Service provider. Tech Crunch
- Jeans, D. (2020, Sep 24). Microsoft Is Building A Cloud-Based Phone Company — And Taking On A Public Company It Helped Grow. Forbes
- Jain, U. (2020, Dec 2). Gupshup launches a new messaging channel, GIP, to enhance business communications with consumers. PR Newswire
- Dyachenko, A. (2021, Jan 15). Use QuickBlox chat integration tools. QuickBlox Blog
- Browne, R. (2020, Oct 8). Europe’s answer to Twilio is now valued at $3 billion, as pandemic fuels cloud boom. CNBC
- Report Linker (2020, Nov 17). The CPaaS market is expected to register a CAGR of 34.3% during the forecast period (2020 – 2025). PR Newswire
- Zipwhip (2020, Nov 19). Zipwhip Makes Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500™ List for Fourth Consecutive Year. Yahoo Finance
- Podium (2020, Nov 18). Podium Named one of the Fastest-Growing Companies in North America on Deloitte’s 2020 Technology Fast 500. PR Newswire
- Vidyo (2020, Dec 21). Vidyo Announces Three New VidyoRoom™ User Experiences for Enhanced Team Collaboration. PR Newswire
- Brightlink (2020, Dec 31). 2020: The Year of Communications Platform as a Service. Brightlink Blog
- Featured image by Chris Montgomery
Kevin Johnson
Brianna Parker
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